Department of Physics and Astronomy

The department of physics and astronomy is dedicated to a broadly laid-out programme of teaching and research. It feels itself committed to Humboldt's ideal of teaching rooted in research and sees its research programme an the borders of knowledge as a pre­requisite for teaching and training its students at high quality.

Research encompasses core areas of fundamental physics as well as inter­disciplinary border areas. In the core areas, research focuses on elementary particle physics, the structure and evolution of the universe, and the properties of complex classical and quantum systems. The inter­disciplinary border areas include environ­mental physics, bio- and medical physics as well as technical computer science. Research is located at 4 department institutes and the Heidelberg Centre for Astronomy. Apart from that, the research environment in Heidelberg is distinguished by a multitude of extra-university research institutions which are topically and personally closely connected to the department. ... more.

Physics degrees

The courses of study
include a Bachelors degree,
a Masters degree and a
doctoral programme
with a wide scope.
The department currently educates about 2000 students.
About 1500 of these are enrolled in the undergraduate courses, and more than
400 participate in the doctoral programme.
With over three hundred Bachelors or Masters graduations and over one hundred
doctoral degrees awarded in the academic year 2015, Heidelberg lies at the
top of all German physics departments.
Education and training are strongly oriented towards research.